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‘Pretty Little Liars’ recap: Boys in the basement, wolves in the backyard

March 1, 2011 | 9:20
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Things were moving fast this week on "Pretty Little Liars." Police visits! Hookups! Stakeouts! Lost virginities! A secret abortion! The most intense game of Scrabble known to man! There was enough scandal packed into Rosewood High's foursome to fuel a nuclear submarine for a month. With the season finale a mere three installments away, it’s looking like the show is gaining more momentum every week. So, in order from least to most shocking, here were the developments:

1. Ezra and Jenna struck up a weird bond over a short story that Jenna’s submitting to a competition; the story is about — you guessed it! — being viciously blinded. Aria, as her wig-out at the school dance proved, is what you could call the jealous type, so she doesn’t take well to the news. After trying to distract Ezra with a home-cooked meal and a see-through dress, she tearfully confessed her friends’ role in Jenna’s “accident.” And, of course, Ezra forgives her. It’s all pretty anticlimactic, but at least Ezra must be putting the pieces together about exactly what a pickle his girlfriend is in.

2. Paige — who’s been MIA since her creepy parking lot kiss-assault of Emily — returns, avoiding Emily in the hallways but leaving a note in her locker. Emily meets Paige at a dive bar, where Paige comes out to Emily and then does an overly exuberant rendition of a Pink song. It’s a totally odd turnaround for Paige’s character to take: from "Swimfan" to "Coyote Ugly" lite. She and Emily kiss outside, and things look like they could be heating up between them — until a picnic the next day. Paige basically tells Emily that she likes her but doesn’t want to be seen with her in public, and Emily breaks it off. Will Paige will be back to exact some sort of revenge? And when is Maya coming back?

3. After putting together the not-so-subtle clues, Hanna’s mom figures out that she’s been harboring an unwanted house guest and kicks Caleb out. Of course, now that Caleb and Hanna are dating (ish?) she storms out with him. Lacking a place to sleep, they opt to pitch a tent and (drumroll, please) Hanna loses her virginity to Caleb while the campfire embers glow. (Am I wrong, or is that the first time in the show the characters have sex?) It seems like they’re moving pretty fast, but I guess teenager time is sort of like dog years. When they return, Hanna’s mother offers Caleb the guest room — mostly, one assumes, in the hopes that it will prevent Hanna from following him to the bus benches — and Caleb makes a mysterious phone call telling someone that he’s quitting their plan.

4. But this nonstop carnival of drama pales in comparison to the trouble that Spencer’s about to get into. When she and Toby discover that Jenna’s been using room 214 in a local motel, they decide to stake out her room. This leads to the aforementioned ridiculous game of Scrabble (Spencer lays down “glyceraldehyde”) and a lot of sexual tension. When they run into the room in the morning, they find a CD of Jenna’s flute-playing and the bag that Ian passed off to her full of ice and a note from A: “You’re getting colder.” Spencer drives back home — after Toby steals a kiss — only to find the police there. It seems that Ian wasn’t at Hilton Head with Alison. He was there with Melissa, who was having an abortion. And now, implausibly, the police found out that Spencer and Ian were seeing each other, which makes Spencer — that’s right — a person of interest in Alison’s death.

Uh-oh. I hope the show hasn’t written itself into a corner with this one. It seems that Jenna and A are definitely in cahoots. But does that mean Caleb’s in on it too? Is Ian innocent? All I know is that A better be up to something good if he wants to distract us from all the great hook-ups happening.